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Message: [QUOTE="oldhusky, post: 4366318, member: 9844"] I don't know if people doing these ratings consider the ability to withstand additional injuries, but from that standpoint, at least at the guard position, we are more vulnerable than most of the top ranked teams. If something happens to a big we are very well protected with 6 talented players to cover PF and C. I know some will disagree, but I consider Aubrey and Ayanna as bigs, that might be able to play some at SF. But in terms of guards, we have quality but not quantity. Only four to cover all the minutes at three positions. That is a pretty difficult rotation to use if all four guards play in every single game. An injury to any of the four leaves us with no backup guards. We played some games last year without guard backups and I'm not sure we played like a ranked team during that stretch. For that period #13 might have been way too high. We had some players gassed playing way too many minutes when we faded in the fourth quarter, Evina had to play out of position at the point, and Aaliyah tried to be a SF as the only "guard" substitute. That was a terrible stretch resulting from injuries to three guards. That is pretty unusual, but after Paige's injury we are only one injury to a guard away from a similar situation. The situation with Evina is similar now with Azzi. If Nika gets injured, Azzi is the full time point guard, and even if Nika is healthy Azzi will need to spell her there. If Azzi is injured Caroline or Lou will have to play the point. That is not good for any of them. As for which big winds up playing guard if one of them is injured, the outlook I think is a little better than last year. Aaliyah struggled a great deal out of position, but I think she might not be the answer this year. Aubrey if healthy could probably do a much better job than Aaliyah did at SF. I feel she would be fine at defense and rebounding there, but would be a difficult fit on the offensive end. Ayanna might be similar in the traits she could bring there. So maybe we have two players this year that could cover SF a little better than our options last year, but it is a pretty significant potential problem. If everybody is healthy #13 seems ridiculous to me too. But I also think it is unrealistic to assume all four of our guards will play in every game. We could easily have 5-10 games missed in total between those four. If those games are against Big East competition it probably affects the differential but not the outcome. If those games are against the difficult out of conference teams we could be in trouble. Dorka, Amari, Aaliyah and Ice can't help with this situation. Aubrey and Ayanna might, but they could be far less effective away from their natural position. We have lots of talented players even without Paige, but no insurance at the guard position. Stay healthy we could be right near the top. If we lost another guard for the year, for example, #13 might be wildly optimistic IMO. Hope for health and Aubrey and/or Ayanna to have success at SF. [/QUOTE]

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